Pan Books
Pan Books is an imprint which first became active in the 1940s and is now part of the British-based Macmillan Publishers owned by German publishers, Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group.
The company was originally an independent United Kingdom-based publisher that was established in 1944 by Alan Bott. Bott had written memoirs of his war experiences while a flying ace in World War I.[2] The Pan Books flute player logo was originally designed by Mervyn Peake.
A few years later, it was bought out by a consortium of several different publishing houses, including Macmillan, Collins, Heinemann and briefly Hodder and Stoughton. It became wholly owned by Macmillan in 1987.[3]
Pan specialized in publishing paperback fiction and, along with Penguin Books, was one of the first popular publishers of this format in the UK. A large number of popular authors saw their works given paperback release through Pan, such as Ian Fleming's James Bond series (Pan was the first UK publisher to issue paperback editions of these books), Leslie Charteris' The Saint, and Peter O'Donnell's Modesty Blaise, as well as other authors such as Georgette Heyer, Neville Shute, John Steinbeck, Josephine Tey and Arthur Upfield, to name a few. Pan also released paperback editions of works by classic authors such as Jane Austen and Charles Dickens.[4]Another notable title of Pan Books is The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.
During the 1950s and 1960s, Pan Books editions were noted for their colorful covers which have made many of them collectables (particularly the Fleming and Charteris novels).[4]
The Pan imprint continues to publish a broad list of popular fiction and non-fiction. Among its authors are David Baldacci, Jackie Collins, Dick Francis, Sue Grafton, Scott Turow and Minette Walters.[3]
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